Root 31 Cafe, Pittsford

I stopped the other day for lunch, with a couple friends, at Root 31 Cafe & Eatery in Pittsford Plaza. It's in what used to be a location of Colie's Cafe, whose Park Avenue location I reviewed in 2012. (There's now just one Colie's, in Eastview Mall, which apparently does not offer pizza. Read the details here.)
According to its website, "Root 31 has partnered with farms that feature pasture raised & grass-fed animals that produce premium dairy, meats, cheeses in addition handcrafted sundries, condiments , jams and jellies. Produce, fruits, and berries all from family farms in the countryside Counties of western NY. The finest ice cream, sorbets, chocolates, vanillas, fruit purees available. Whenever possible we use local, organic ingredients guided by principles of sustainability."
All well and good. I applaud them for that. So how's the food?
This is a "fast casual" place, where you order at the counter and have your food delivered to the table. Root 31 is not a pizzeria as such, but it does feature pizza on the menu. Pizzas here come in two sizes, "petite" and "personal." I was hungry, so I got a personal cheese pizza, which was about the size of a dinner plate.
Before getting on to the pizza, I have to say, I found the prices rather curious. A personal cheese pizza was $8.25. Specialty pizzas ranged from $8.95 to $9.95. But individual toppings on a personal pizza were either $2.50 or $2.90. So if I got a white pizza with one veggie topping, that would come to $10.75. But I could get a "Chef's Style" white pizza, with bacon, onions and other toppings for $8.95. Maybe there's some logic behind that, but if so, I'm missing it.
So I got a plain cheese pizza. At first glance, it didn't look too bad. The cheese seemed a little overbrowned, but the pie looked OK overall.
But things went downhill from there. The underside was rather pale, and the crust was thin, limp, and floppy. When I tried to pick up a slice, it flopped over, and the toppings slid off.
I have given great reviews to pizzas whose slices might justly be characterized as floppy. Some are best eaten with a knife and fork, as I ended up doing here.
But those pizzas had crusts that were slightly charred, aromatic and flavorful. The crusts were good enough to eat on their own. This crust was just dull and lifeless. It seemed undercooked, and it didn't have much to recommend it. This was one of the few times that I have left some of the crust on my plate, and discarded it.
Sometimes good toppings can partially save a bad crust, but not this time. The cheese was rather overbrowned, as I've said. It wasn't hard, but neither was it smooth, and the oil that it exuded had settled into a few pools here and there.
I wasn't too thrilled about the sauce, either. I probably notice the sauce mostly when I don't like it.
As here. As I was eating this pizza, "SpaghettiOs" popped into my mind. The sauce reminded me of SpaghettiOs sauce.
Make no mistake, I have fond memories of SpaghettiOs. But I don't necessarily want my pizza sauce to taste like something that came out of a can of Franco American pasta.
I'm not saying this sauce came out of a can. For all I know, it was made from organic, locally produced ingredients. I'm just saying that the flavor reminded me of SpaghettiOs, with that distinctive tanginess of salt and Parmesan cheese, and not much tomato flavor. Maybe if I'd liked the crust, I would have been more predisposed to like the sauce, I don't know. I didn't exactly dislike the sauce, but it just didn't seem to help the pizza much. A little more tomatoey sweetness and some herbal accents would've been welcome.
One of my companions got a pepperoni pizza. To put it briefly, it was about the same, and she wasn't too happy with it.
Not to pile on, but it also took a loong time after I got my pizza, for her pizza to come out, and I think it was pretty obvious when we ordered that we were together. It would've been nice to get our pizzas at around the same time.
I wish I could say that my other companion's hamburger (which arrived with the pepperoni pizza) partially saved the day. But it didn't. He wasn't asked how he wanted it cooked, and this was well done. A thin patty, with no trace of pink inside, and from his account, as dry as it looked. That's why there's ketchup. I know some places won't do burgers less than well done, for health reasons, but if that's Root 31's policy, it should've been disclosed.
I don't enjoy giving bad reviews. But I have to be honest. If I thought we'd just caught Root 31 on a bad day, I'd hold off. But I don't. So I have to be honest and give the pizza a D.

Root 31 Cafe & Eatery
3349 Monroe Ave., Pittsford
(585) 383-5660 - contact@root31.com

Mon-Sat 9am - 9pm, Sun 9am - 8pm

Pizzeria FAVO, Monroe Ave., PIttsford

Pizzeria FAVO opened last month in Pittsford Colony Plaza, on the northeast side of Monroe Avenue, across from Pittsford Plaza.
FAVO is among the first local examples of what I'm guessing is an emergent trend, or actually a combination of two trends: fast-casual pizzerias that use a gas flame, to mimic wood-fired pizza.
That sounds like something I would dislike, just on grounds of principle. But ultimately the end product is what counts, and this was good pizza.
At FAVO, you order at the counter, and in a few minutes you pick it up a little further down the line. There you'll see the Italian-made oven, which utilizes a gas flame and a rotating deck.
My Margherita came up quickly, in just a few minutes. It displayed a somewhat unevenly baked edge, with some charring, and not-quite-charred blistering along the other. The underside was firm, but not crackly crisp (that's not a criticism, just a description). The bottom was slightly dusted with either corn meal or semolina; whatever it was, there was too little of it, and it was too finely ground, for me to identify it.
One issue I have with some places these days, using open flames, is that the edge gets charred, but the underside remains pale. It's easy enough to get some blackened blistering along the edge, if you expose the edge of the pie to a flame for a few seconds. It creates a nice appearance, but with a thin-crust pizza baked in a high-temperature oven, I'd like to see some "leopard spotting" on the bottom as well.
The crust here was browned underneath, but not spotted. I don't want to make too much over some sort of pizza-snobbish criteria ("charred - check"; "spotted - check"), but I'll confess to being mildly irritated about a crust that's blackened along the edge, but not underneath. It seems to be done more for appearance's sake than anything else.
Having said all that, this crust was enjoyable. It lacked the toasty, slightly smoky notes of a great wood-fired crust, but it was bready, a bit chewy, and thin but not paper thin.
The toppings were good as well, both on my and my companion's pies. On my Margherita, a thin layer of tomato sauce was layered with slices of fresh tomato, melted rounds of fresh mozzarella, and a smattering of torn basil. One of my companions found the sauce a bit metallic; I thought it was acidic, in a tomatoey way, but maybe that's just a case of us coming up with two different adjectives for the same thing. But it was not a sweet sauce.
My friends both liked their pies. The pepperoni pie was a well balanced take on an American standard. My other friend's Paesano was very tasty, with a light layer of tomato sauce, topped with processed mozzarella, sliced sausage, mushrooms and tender, sweet grilled onions.
We got there relatively early, right around noon, and initally had the place almost to ourselves, though the crowd started to pick up quickly shortly thereafter. Service was efficient, and the manager seemed to be on top of things, making sure that everything ran smoothly.
FAVO's website doesn't seem to be fully up yet, although I did find an image of their menu on Yelp. They offer seven "classic" pizzas, and six "specialty" pizzas (I'm not quite sure how some of them ended up in one category or the other), and a very reasonably priced "build your own" option, which includes a choice of sauce, crust ("traditional" or "ancient grains"), cheese, meat, and unlimited veggie toppings for $8.95. They also offer gluten-free crust for an additional $2.50. There are a few salads on the menu, as well as self-serve gelato.
Pizzeria FAVO's menu states that they are "inspired by the spirit and traditions of classic brick-oven pizzerias from Naples, Italy to New York City." That's probably a good way to put it. This is an Americanized, neo-Neapolitan pizza, suited to the fast-casual format and at a relatively low price. For what they're doing here, I'd say they're doing a good job.
To grade, or not to grade? With new places, I often hold off on assigning grades. But having sampled three pies, and given its standardized procedures (which presumably result in some consistency), I feel safe in giving Pizzeria FAVO a B. I can't say it's among the very best I've tried in our area, but I was pretty pleased with it, as were my companions, so I do think it's worth checking out.

Pizzeria FAVO, 3400 Monroe Ave. (Pittsford Colony, opposite Pittsford Plaza)
(585) 310-7383

11 a.m. - 10 p.m. daily

Branca, Bushnells Basin

If nothing else, the current trend of wood-fired pizza is giving local pizza lovers more options to choose from, and it's giving me more and more places to check out; sometimes more than I can keep up with. One such is Branca in Bushnells Basin, which opened this summer in what had been a Great Northern Pizza Kitchen location.
It’s funny how some new places get so much more buzz than others, but I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised when on a recent Sunday around 5:30 my wife and I showed up and were told that Branca could “not accommodate walk-ins until 8:30.” Branca was opened by the owners of The Revelry, a Rochester hotspot, and it’s in Bushnells Basin, which I described to my wife as “Pittsford on steroids.” Put those together and you’re talking about a place where you don’t just walk in and expect to get a table right away, even on what’s an off-night for many places. (We left and went to another place not too far away, which I’ll report on soon.)
Several days later, the opportunity again arose for use to go out for dinner, and this time I made a reservation. So with some smugness on my part, we sauntered past the ignorant masses waiting for a table and were quickly ushered to our seats.

We were seated not too far from Branca’s oven. I didn’t take a photo, since you can see several good views of the oven on Branca’s Facebook page. But the fire was blazing, and pizzas were steadily going in and out.
There was no question that I was going to get a pizza; it was only a matter of which one. Aside from the Tartufata (it’s got mushrooms - a no-go, for me), they all sounded good, but I went with my usual Margherita.
Initial impressions:  thick, blistered cornicione, very thin interior, some spotty charring on an otherwise pale underside. The cornicione was chewy, pleasant enough but a bit bland, and I found it a little wide and thick, relative to the overall size of the pizza. I like a good outer crust, but this was a little much for me.
The interior crust was supple, thin, and chewy. I understand that Neapolitan pizza is typically not crisp and crackly, like New York style pizza, but I found this pie just a bit soupy. Branca’s oven runs at about 900 degrees, which can evaporate some of the water in a sauce, but the sauce here was a little more liquid than I would’ve liked. 
But the sauce, which is made from San Marzano tomatoes, was flavorful, and the dollops of fresh mozzarella were nicely melted. I could’ve used a little more basil, but what basil there was had been added at the right time to wilt it and bring out some flavor, without drying it out or browning it.
I should mention that the rest of our meal was very good. I started with a Panzanella Toscana salad, with heirloom tomatoes, bread, cucumber, red onion, and red wine vinaigrette, which made for a nice combination. I think I may have set a personal record for carb consumption, between the pizza, that bread-based salad, and the crusty complimentary bread that we were given for starters. My wife enjoyed her salad with goat cheese, and her vegetarian, farro-based main course proved to be an excellent choice as well.
As long as this is turning into a full-blown review, I’ll say a bit more about the place in general. No complaints about the service; the staff did a good job at keeping up with the crowd, and our server checked in on us from time to time. The feel was upscale casual, but don’t go here for an intimate dinner. Tables are close together, and although my wife and I didn’t find conversation difficult, the noise level was fairly high. Branca claims to evoke the spirit of "Old Hollywood watering holes," but I'm not sure if I even know what that entails, much less whether it's an accurate description.
So is Branca worth the hype? Hard to say, after just one meal, but it’s certainly worth a visit.  I tend to avoid rating pizzas until a place has had some time to sort itself out, so let’s just say that at this point, I’d recommend checking it out, even if I’m not yet putting Branca on my must-do list. Just make a reservation first.

Branca, 683 Pittsford-Victor Rd., Bushnells Basin
585-310-7415

Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - midnight
Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.
Sun. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

jojo, Pittsford

It's taken a long time, but I finally made it to jojo (that's how they spell it, no caps) in Pittsford. Jojo opened in 2003 or '04 (their logo reads "Est. 2004," but I found a 2003 review of jojo in the D&C online).
When it opened, jojo latched onto two trends:  wood-fired ovens and bistros. In France, a bistro is a very specific type of establishment, and I'm not sure that a Frenchman would recognize jojo as a bistro.
But over here these kinds of labels seem to be so loosely defined, in practice, as to render them almost meaningless. Perhaps as a result, you don't see so many places jumping on the "bistro" bandwagon these days.
But restaurants with wood-fired ovens seem to be here to stay, with new entrants continuing to pop up now and then. And I was pleased to see that jojo does it right, with a real wood fire, not just a gas oven that can accommodate a log or two for looks. Every so often jojo's pizzaiolo would check on the fire, occasionally stoking it with more fuel from the stack of firewood below.
While I usually go with a Margherita pizza at these sorts of places, I opted this time for the "pepperoni" pie. The quotation marks are theirs, not mine, and I assume that they are meant to reflect the fact that the term "pepperoni," as applied to sausage at least, is virtually unknown in Italy, although hordes of American tourists asking for it may change that over time.
Jojo's menu describes the "pepperoni" pizza as topped with soppressata, mozzarella and tomato sauce, and there's basil on there as well, so I figured it was essentially a Margherita with sausage, and I was curious to see if jojo's soppressata was noticeably different from what you and I know as pepperoni. When I placed my order, my server asked if I wanted big or small pepperoni, which I wasn't expecting, and I asked for small, figuring that small might mean a denser sausage with more intense flavor. Maybe.
I was able to watch my pizza's preparation, and was surprised to see the pizzaiolo roll out the dough. A lot of experts (actual, presumed, or self-appointed) will tell you never to roll out your pizza dough, lest you squeeze out all the air bubbles that give the crust a good texture. I've always wondered whether there's anything to that, but it did surprise me to see a rolling pin being used here.
The pizza spent about five minutes (I didn't time it, that's just my estimate) in the oven, and the pizzaiolo was pretty attentive, turning it a couple of times and moving it as necessary to achieve the desired level of doneness.
When finished, the pizza was sliced and quickly served, mouth-burningly hot. It was visually attractive, with a thin crust, a narrow cornicione, and an eye-pleasing combination of cheese, sauce, basil and pepperoni.
Yes, pepperoni. It was good, but nomenclature aside, it was what any average American pizza eater would call pepperoni. Meaty, chewy, with some peppery kick, and some exuded oil from its melted fat.
The crust was very pliable, so much so that the slices could not only be folded, they could be rolled. The bottom was rather pale - bit of a disappointment there - and a tad floury.
The edge was browned, crackly and a little puffy. Away from the edge, though, the crust did not display much in the way of interior yeast activity, perhaps lending some credence to the notion that a rolling pin is not the best way to stretch out a pizza.
On the plus side, the pizza tasted good. The components were well balanced, with a straightforward tomato sauce and aged mozzarella added in good proportion to each other and the thin crust. The basil was as it should be - just wilted enough to bring out its flavor, but not burnt. And as I mentioned, the pepperoni was fine, giving this the overall flavor of a classic American pie, done in a more "artisanal" style.
Jojo has some other pizzas on the menu that I wouldn't mind trying, including a sausage pie with chorizo and banana peppers, and a wide variety of other tempting entrees, from steaks to seafood. (I'd particularly like to try their beef shortribs, which is a cut of meat that I have yet to master at home).
I liked this pizza, and polished it off quite easily. But I can't give it especially high marks on the crust, and if there's one area in which wood-fired pizza ought to shine, it's the crust. This one was OK, but flawed. It was pale and limp, with a bit of raw-flour flavor underneath, and not much happening in the interior. As wood-fired pizzerias proliferate, the bar has been raised, and though this pizza was perfectly acceptable, I'd have to place it in the "average" category for its style. So it gets a C from me.
Jojo Bistro & Wine Bar, 60 N. Main St., Pittsford 14534
385-3108
Sun. - Wed. 4:00 – 10:00, Thu. 4:00 – 11:00, Friday & Saturday 4:00 – 12:00

Guys Pizza Co., Pittsford - CLOSED

(NOTE: This establishment is now closed. RPG)
I recently learned of a new pizzeria in Pittsford named Guys Pizza Co. It's a Cleveland- based chain, and this is the first Guys location outside Ohio. (It also has no connection with Five Guys, which is a chain burger joint with a handful of locations in the Rochester area.)
I generally don't get too excited about pizza chains, but hey, this is new to the Rochester area, and so far it's the only Guys location around here, so I was curious enough to take a drive to Pittsford to check it out.
I was planning on getting a slice, and when I arrived, I noticed that their flyers on the counter contained coupons for a free slice, no purchase necessary. So that worked out well. I did but a drink, though, just so I wouldn't feel like a total cheapskate.
Unfortunately, the cheese slice that I got looked as though it had been sitting out for a while, so it wasn't at the peak of freshness, but I still got a pretty good idea, I think, of what their pizza is like.
Which is to say, not all that great. This slice had a thin to medium crust, quite thin toward the tip, and maybe half an inch thick toward the outer edge. The interior was dotted with tiny air holes, and though it wasn't a bad crust, it wasn't very breadlike either. The underside was brown and slightly oily, with a pancake-like appearance. There was a bit of crunch along the edge, but otherwise the crust was pretty unremarkable.
The sauce and cheese were in pretty good balance with the crust, with a moderate layer of each. The sauce was characterized by a somewhat sweet tomatoey flavor, while the browned mozzarella was adequate but again nothing special.
And that's about it. Again, not a bad slice of pizza, just not particularly interesting.
One thing I must say about chains, they generally offer a lot of options, and Guys is no exception. There's a long list of pizza toppings, four different sauces, and 13 specialty pizzas, including a "Garbage Plate Pizza." From their website, it looks as though Pittsford is the only Guys location to offer that particular variety, so I guess they're making some effort to adapt to their local community, which is nice. (Didn't Nick Tahou's register the term "Garbage Plate" with the trademark office, though?) You can also order your pizza half one variety, half another.
Guys' pizzas come in small, medium, large and "New Yorker" sizes (which I take to mean extra large and thin), as well as half and full sheets. They also offer Chicago-style deep dish pizza, "take & bake" pizzas, and their signature item, the "Legendary Guyzones," which the menu describes as a "massively delicious variation to Calzones," though I'm not sure what the "variation" is; they sound like calzones to me. Maybe they're just bigger.
Other menu offerings include salads, wings, quesadillas, wraps, "Guyninis" (a "larger version of a panini sandwich" - I think I see a pattern here), and a few dessert items, including Guys' verision of s'mores (which surprisingly are not called "Guys'mores").
A lot to offer, then, and maybe some of those items are really good. Since they really trumpet their "Guyzones," I guess I'd like to try one sometime. But this pizza didn't impress me too much. It was a bit below average, in my opinion, and I'll give it a C-.
Guys Pizza Co., 18 S. Main St., Pittsford. 248-2222
Mon. - Thu. 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - 11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Rookies, Buffalo Road

I've noticed recently that more bars are advertising pizza on their menus. And with March Madness and St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, what better time to check some of them out?
Now before I get to today's establishment, let me just say that bar pizza is a tricky thing; you never know what you're going to get, particularly since not every bar that offers pizza is set up to make pizza from scratch. While a handful of places are equipped to prepare from-scratch, pizzeria-style pizza, others, I think, rely on premade crusts, which can be easily topped with canned sauce and shredded cheese, and popped into the oven for a few minutes.
One of the recent entrants onto the bar-pizza scene is Rookies, a sports bar with locations in Gates and Pittsford. I stopped for lunch recently at the original location in Gates.
Rookies has eight pizzas on the menu.  I went with the pepperoni pizza, figuring that it's one of the most basic, and probably the most popular.
My personal-size pizza wasn't bad looking, with a medium-thick crust, topped with wide, evenly spaced slices of pepperoni, melted cheese and a deep red sauce.
It was a bit disappointing, therefore, when my first bite revealed a dry, rather lifeless crust. It was firm, certainly - the slice stood out as straight as a ruler when I held it by the edge - and it was not greasy, which is also a plus, but it had no breadlike qualities, and precious little moisture. Not that I want my pizza crust to be wet, but this one seemed to have had all the moisture sucked out of it.
The toppings were a little better, at least. The sauce was amply applied, which was fortunate, given the desiccated crust. It had a sweetish flavor that was reminiscent of canned pasta sauce, but it wasn't bad at all.
The cheese was thoroughly melted, not browned, and was very stringy, which you may or may not like, but it seemed like high-quality mozzarella, with a bit of fat oozing out of it, and it also helped add some textural interest. The pepperoni was unremarkable but acceptable. The edge, unsurprisingly, was quite crunchy.
Besides plain cheese and pepperoni, Rookies also offers Buffalo chicken, veggie, and Philly steak pizzas, as well as their "signature" Greek pizza with Greek marinade, charbroiled chicken breast, Kalamata olives, red onions, tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese. The rest of the menu runs toward bar-food staples such as wings, burgers, and quesadillas, all grouped under sports-themed headings (for no reason that I can think of, pizzas are deemed "Second Quarter."
There's ample seating at Rookies, with a long bar facing one wall, booths along the other three walls, and tall tables and barstools in between. The walls are black, which might come off as rather gloomy were it not for the solid ring of TV screens surrounding the entire dining area.
This is definitely a male-oriented place, which is to be expected at a sports bar, I guess. On my visit, the wait and bar staff seemed to be entirely female, and the clientele almost entirely male, though a couple of women did come in for lunch just before I left. I'm guessing that on game days the aroma of chicken wings mixes with that of testosterone, and that you'd better get here early if you want a place to sit.
To borrow some sports terminology, Rookies didn't exactly strike out with this pizza, but it was far from a home run. It has some things going for it - decent sauce, nicely melted cheese, pretty good balance - but the dry crust was reminiscent of a frozen pizza, and not an especially good one at that. An infield hit, perhaps, but that's about it. I'll give this one a C-, and next time I'd opt for some wings instead.
Rookies Sports Bar & Grill, 2351 Buffalo Road, Gates 429-4665, and 3400 Monroe Ave., Pittsford 385-7665
11 a.m. - 2 a.m. daily.

Olives, Pittsford

You might not ordinarily think of a Greek restaurant as a place to go for pizza, but why not? Although it's not too common around here, there are a couple of styles of pizza in this country commonly known as Greek pizza. I'm guessing, too, that the concept of putting toppings on flatbread and baking it is fairly widespread throughout the Mediterranean.
So it shouldn't come as a total surprise to find pizza on the menu at Olives at Schoen Place in Pittsford. I was tipped off to this by a reader quite some time ago, but I finally got around to trying it.
Olives offers eight different pizzas, and the "Spartan," with mozzarella, goat feta, and kasseri cheeses with tomatoes and onions, was both recommended and sounded good to me.
The crust on this personal-size pizza was about a quarter of an inch thick, and the dry underside bore some grill marks. The interior had some visible air holes and was a bit chewy, while the thin edge was dry and crunchy, with a toasted flavor.
As it often does in any dish, the feta took center stage here, lending a sharp, salty pungency to this pizza. It was not completely overwhelming, though, and I could also easily detect the flavor of the tomatoes (mostly from the underlying layer of sauce rather than from the sliced tomatoes, though the latter weren't bad, and of the onions as well. The pizza was also well dusted with dried herbs that gave it an added dimension to the overall flavor profile. All the toppings worked well together and with the crust.
You can look over Olives' menu on their website, but it generally covers all the standard Greek fare, from gyros to souvlaki, as well as some entrees that you won't find at your basic Greek diner. As far as the pizza goes, you won't find any cheese-and-pepperoni pies on the menu, but there are plenty of places around where you can get that. Next time I might try the Athenian, which is topped with roasted red peppers, artichokes, kasseri cheese and garlic spread.
And yes, this was good enough for there to be a next time. I generally don't care for "faux" pizzas made using pita bread, which I've seen at some Greek or Middle Eastern restaurants, but this was pretty good. Not an everyday kind of pizza, but a nice change of pace, and quite tasty. I'll give it a B.
Olives Greek Taverna, 50 State Street, Pittsford 381-3990
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 8 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Wegmans, Pittsford

Yes, you read that right. Wegmans. Wegmans pizza.
Now why would a blog devoted to local pizzerias review supermarket pizza? Well, for one, this isn’t just any supermarket we're talking about here. This is Wegmans. Now I’m not one of those people who takes out-of-town guests to see Wegmans, but let’s face it: though Wegmans may have grown from a local supermarket into a Mid-Atlantic regional chain, it remains a local institution, and it's become a part of our communal identity.
And the fact is, it is a damn fine supermarket, maybe one of the best in the country (which is tantamount to saying one of the best in the world, since nobody does supermarkets better than we do here in the U.S. of A.). I'm sure it has its detractors, but Wegmans undeniably does a lot of things very well.
One of the things I’m always particularly impressed with is their bread. Wegmans makes some really excellent bread, far better than what you find at most other supermarkets, in this area at least.
So, I had to wonder, is their pizza any good? I see it all the time when I go there. It never looked especially good to me, but still, this is Wegmans we’re talking about here. And when I discovered that there’s actually a Facebook page created by and for Wegmans pizza fans, well, I had to see for myself just how good it is.
I chose, of course, the Pittsford Wegmans, the crème de la crème of local Wegmans stores. The pizza station is off on the far left of the store when you come in, over near the steps leading up to where Tastings Restaurant used to be. (Tastings’ replacement, Next Door Bar & Grill, is now open across the street, and advertises “very thin crust” pizza, which doesn’t necessarily sound promising to me, but I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve tried it.)
I was a little surprised to see a very small oven near the counter, until I realized that it’s simply used for rewarming slices. The full-size steel pizza ovens are in back of the counter.
The slices were normal size, so I got a couple, one plain cheese and one with pepperoni and hot peppers. The crusts were thin, though not super thin, with medium brown undersides that had been dusted with cornmeal. The exterior was crisp and crackly, to the point where each slice cracked along a fault line when I tried to fold it. They were also a bit gritty, which I assume was from the cornmeal.
The other components were applied in pretty good proportion to each other and to the crust. The sauce was slightly sweet, and the processed mozzarella cheese was lightly browned.
Oddly, where these slices most fell short, in my estimation, was in the crust. It was not especially bready, in taste or texture. Whereas a great pizza will typically have a crust so good that the outer edge is my favorite part, the edge on these was rather uninteresting. It was similar to a basic breadstick, golden brown and crunchy, but kind of ho-hum. And although I like a nice crisp crust, the best crusts are both crisp and pliable. These were definitely on the brittle side.
All in all, then, this was decent enough pizza, probably better than you’d typically find at a supermarket, but neither was it on a par with Wegmans’ bread in terms of overall quality. It was something like a rough approximation of New York style pizza, but if that’s what they were aiming for, it missed the mark in some respects. It would do in a pinch, but that’s about all. I’ll give it a B-.
Wegmans Pittsford, 3195 Monroe Ave. 586-6680

Benucci's, Pittsford

I’ve been on a bit of a tour lately of wood-burning oven pizzerias, so continuing in that vein, we turn to Benucci’s in Pittsford Plaza.
This is one of those places that’s locally owned and independent, but feels like a chain restaurant. You can take that however you want to - for some people it may be a good thing, for others not. But Benucci’s has been open for over 10 years now, so clearly it’s built a solid customer base.
As I typically do on my first visit to a place doing wood-fired pizza, I ordered a Margherita, which at Benucci’s comes with Roma tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and roasted garlic. I was glad to see the garlic on the menu, since that’s how I like my Margheritas.
The first thing I noticed about the pizza was its unusual oblong, roughly football-like shape. The crust was thin, as expected, with a well floured underside that was well browned here and there, with just a hint of charring in a couple of spots.
It was crisp but not crackly on the outside. Unlike some wood-fired pizza I've tried, this one wasn't all crunch and no chew; it had a thin but chewy interior. But while some pizza dough will rise or puff up a bit when it hits the hot oven floor, this one hadn’t, and I found it a bit dense in texture, save for the thin, crunchy edge.
Although the menu only mentioned fresh mozzarella, there were actually two different cheeses here, with slices of fresh mozzarella atop a bed of what I took to be processed mozzarella. While that’s a little unusual, the melted, processed mozzarella added a nice tanginess to the overall flavor of the pizza, though it threatened to overwhelm the much more delicate flavor of the fresh variety. I don’t know if it was all the cheese, but the pizza surface was a little oily. (It’s also possible that the chef gave it a quick shot of olive oil when it came out of the oven. If I had a more discriminating palate I guess I’d have been able to tell from the flavor.)
The tomato slices, I’m afraid, didn’t really add much here. They were better than the awful things you sometimes get on salads or burgers, but not especially flavorful, no big surprise at this time of year, I suppose.
The garlic, on the other hand, was a welcome addition. I’ve had some pizzas purportedly made with fresh garlic where I could barely taste the garlic, but here it was unmistakable. This was not a harsh flavor, either, like raw garlic, but almost sweet, the way that roasted garlic should be. The fresh basis was also added in good proportion with the other components, complementing but does not dominating the other toppings.
Besides the Margherita (which the menu misspells as Margarita - that’s a drink, not a pizza), Benucci offers seven other pizzas, from a basic pepperoni pie to a pear and Gorgonzola pizza that’s also topped with toasted walnuts, parmesan and arugula. One slight oddity is the “Sicilian,” which here doesn’t denote a thick, pan-risen crust, but the toppings, which include meatballs and salami. If you’re on a budget, and don’t mind eating a bit late, Benucci’s offers its pepperoni, sausage, and Margherita pizzas for just $5 at the bar from 8 to 10 Monday through Thursday and 9 to 11 Friday and Saturday.
The rest of the menu is almost exclusively Italian, with pasta and other Italian specialties, and more standard American fare with an Italian twist. (The lunch and dinner menus, which are nearly identical, can be viewed on Benucci’s website.)
This was a good pizza. It was well made, and had good flavor. It was pretty well balanced, although with two cheeses, aromatic garlic, and relatively bland tomatoes, it was more like a white pizza than some other Margheritas I’ve tried. I thought the crust was also very good, if not quite great. Not that I want a burnt crust, but I could’ve used the toastiness that you get with a nicely charred - as opposed to simply browned - crust. And while this dough at least had an interior, its texture was a bit dense for my taste. All in all, though, nice job, and I’ll give it a B.
Benucci’s, 3349 Monroe Ave, 264-1300
Mon.-Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 10:00 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m., Sun noon - 9:00 p.m.

Max Market

“Max” is a brand name for a local culinary mini-empire founded by chef Tony Gullace. There’s Max of Eastman Place, Max Chop House, Max at the (Memorial Art) Gallery, and Max at High Falls, making the pseudonymous Max something of a Rochester version of Emeril.
Then there’s Max Market in Pittsford, which combines a specialty/gourmet food store with a café and deli. Somewhere I noticed that they serve pizza, so I decided to give it a try.
The sign outside advertising brick oven pizza looked promising. Inside, I walked past shelves of sourdough bread (also promising), imported Italian tomatoes, and Pittsford Dairy ice cream to the counter in back, where I ordered a small Margherita. To me, the Margherita - traditionally, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil - is to “gourmet” pizza what the basic cheese, or cheese-and-pepperoni pie is to “regular” pizza, kind of a benchmark.
My order came up surprisingly quickly. Now a super-hot pizza oven can bake a pizza in a couple of minutes, but this was still pretty fast, making me think that the pizza had been at least partially premade. That inkling was somewhat confirmed by the relatively thick crust, since I don’t think it would’ve been possible to prepare and fully bake a pizza this thick in the time it took for my order to come up. Not that it’s a big deal, I mean if it’s good, that’s all I really care about, I was just a little surprised that it was ready so soon.
As I said, my pizza, which measured about 9½ inches in diameter, had a fairly thick crust. That was also a bit of a surprise, since a lot of upscale, brick-oven places seem to make a point of stretching their dough nearly to the gluten’s breaking point (which I don’t necessarily like, as it prevents the pizza from developing a chewy, bready interior). The underside was crisp, and baked to a mottled, medium brown. The interior displayed numerous small air holes.
Visually, the most prominent feature of the pizza was the large slices of fresh mozzarella - larger than on many Margheritas I’ve had, where the fresh mozzarella forms more of an island in a sea of crushed tomatoes. Closer inspection revealed that there were actually two cheeses here, as the fresh mozzarella lay atop a second layer of a yellower, more aged cheese, though I couldn’t identify the variety. Whatever it was, it was pretty mild, as there was not much cheese flavor here at all.
What did have a lot of flavor were the slices of fresh (probably Roma) tomato on top of the cheese. I imagine the cooking process, which would have caused some of the water in the tomatoes to evaporate, would have concentrated their flavor somewhat, but even so these were remarkably good tomatoes, especially at this time of year. If, in this age of year-round produce, you’ve gotten accustomed to tomatoes that are more decorative than tasty, these will come as a revelation. The smaller pieces of sundried tomato furnished comparatively less flavor, and seemed to have caramelized a bit in the oven. The shreds of wilted basil added an herbal note to the overall profile, but were not especially prominent on the palate.
That left the outer edge, which had a nice crunch. It seemed to me reminiscent of a good, French bread dough.
Max’s other pizza offerings are a pepperoni pie, roasted vegetable pizza, pizza bianca (white pizza), and rotating daily specials, in small and large sizes. Other food choices include salads, sandwiches, pasta, and various ready-to-go prepared foods, and desserts as well.
And of course, there are the packaged foods. I picked up some rarely seen, imported “00” flour, which supposedly is a necessity if you want to make “authentic” Italian pizza (I’ll let you know how it goes).
As far as my pizza is concerned, well, there were things I liked about it and things I didn’t. It seemed to have been made from good dough, but as my favorite bread guru, Peter Reinhart, writes, baking good bread is all about manipulating time and temperature in order to maximize the flavor and texture of the finished product. This crust lacked the high-heat charring and toasted aroma and flavor that marks the best pizza, so I’m not sure that Max fully realized this dough’s potential.
And though the tomatoes were very good, the tomatoes and cheese had proportionally been applied in reverse to what I would have preferred. I would rather have had those tomatoes used as a flavorful base for some melted, creamy mozzarella, rather than the thick, double layer of relatively bland cheese that I got here, with the tomatoes adding some teasingly good accents that left me wanting more.
Though I say it often, those are, of course, just my opinions. But since this is my blog, those are the only opinions I can offer. To me, this was good pizza, but it lacked a certain complexity, was not as well balanced as it could have been, and the components didn’t seem to mesh all that well. It struck me as more like upscale fast food than as truly great pizza. So I liked it, but not as much as I'd hoped for, and I’ll give it a C+.
Max Market, 2949 Monroe Ave. , 271-1210
Monday - Saturday: 8am -8pm, Sunday: 8am - 6pm

Brio, Monroe Ave., Pittsford

Pizza Guy Note: since this post was written, Brio has closed. This location is now home to the second location of Pomodoro.
Today I'm writing about another place that does pizza in a wood-fired oven: Brio.
Before I get to the details, though, let me apologize for the poor quality of the photographs on this one. I thought I could get away with the "indoor" setting on my camera and no flash, but the light in the restaurant was just too dim. I prefer not to use the flash, because it tends to flatten out the picture, and at close range it can cause lighter areas, like the underside of a crust, to white out completely, but clearly it would've been preferable here. But though the photos may not win any Pulitzer Prizes, they should be good enough to illustrate my description.
Brio is a full-service restaurant specializing in Italian food. It’s more upscale than your basic, red-sauce type of place, but it’s not particularly cutting-edge or chichi, either. Think of an Italian chain restaurant, now make it a notch or two better than that, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Brio is all about.
Brio opened in 2002, so for around here at least, they’re a relative veteran of the wood-burning oven scene. I ordered a Margherita pizza with a white (as opposed to whole wheat) crust.
When it came, the crust had a slightly charred appearance, as expected, but it was surprisingly soft. It wasn’t greasy, but I got the impression that this was a short dough, in other words, made with a fair amount of shortening, which will result in a softer crust. The slices were not crisp, were instead quite pliable, and despite the charring, I got no “crunch” when I bit into them. The crust was thin, but had bubbled up into big, puffy airholes here and there. The outer lip was also light and puffy, enjoyable but again not very crisp or breadlike.
These were very cheese-dominated slices. Some Margheritas, especially the more “artisanal” types, come out of the oven with just a few islands of melted, fresh mozzarella atop a bed of crushed tomatoes, but this pizza was covered with a think blanket of stringy, processed mozzarella that took center stage. Bits of shredded fresh basil added some welcome herbal flavor to cut through all that cheese. The oven-roasted tomatoes (also unusual, in my experience, for a Margherita pizza), were good, but except when I got a good chunk of one, they didn’t add much flavor to the pizza as a whole, compared with fresh tomatoes, which have a less concentrated flavor, but more liquid, so that their flavor tends to spread out more over the entire pizza.
Brio’s other six varieties of pizza run the gamut from basic sauce, mozzarella and pepperoni to chicken and pesto, seafood, and grilled vegetables. The rest of the menu features several pasta dishes, steaks, and fish. Some Spanish influences also creep in, as in the chorizo pizza and the paella, which is incongruously listed under “Pasta.” There’s also a kid’s menu, and though it’s not your typical family-type place, it’s noisy enough to bring the kids without worrying about bothering your neighbors.
This isn’t the first time I’ve eaten at Brio, and my experiences there have generally been good. Casting a more critical eye on the pizza this time, though, I was a bit disappointed. It was all right and all, but here’s another place that features a wood-burning oven, yet doesn’t seem to be taking full advantage of it, at least where the pizza is concerned. Look, I’ve had wood-fired pizza that was too crisp, to the point that it was like nothing so much as a giant round cracker, but c’mon guys, you’ve got a tremendous heat source there, don’t be afraid to use it!
I don’t know - maybe it’s got something to do with the fear that diners in this area will be put off by the sight of what some might see as “burned” pizza, and maybe I’m overestimating the sophistication of local pizza lovers’ palates, but I think we’ve gotten past that point where this kind of pizza needs to be dumbed down for it to go over with the public. Wood-fired pizza places have been popping up all over here lately, and I’m guessing that what might not have flown six or seven years ago would be embraced by a lot more customers today.
I don’t mean to come down too hard on Brio - as I said, the pizza was OK - but I just think how much better than OK it could’ve, and should’ve been. Of course, it’s altogether possible that I’m in a distinct minority here, and that the overwhelming majority of Brio’s customers wouldn’t change a thing, but I’m giving this one a C+.
Brio Wine Bar and Grill, 3400 Monroe Ave., Pittsford. 586-7000
Mon. - Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 - 11:00 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 - 11:00 p.m., Sat. 4:00 - 11:00 p.m., Sun. 4:00 - 9:00 p.m.